A Dún Laoghaire barbershop transformed into a modern home: ‘I used to get my hair cut here as a kid’
Chartered surveyor Nick Taaffe successfully renovated a historic barbershop in Dún Laoghaire into a modern three-bedroom home. Despite facing financial hurdles during the pandemic, he completed the project to fulfill his ambition of living in his childhood neighborhood.
Why it matters
This reflects broader trends in urban regeneration and the personal challenges of property development in a post-recession, post-pandemic economy.
F orget about living above the shop. Chartered surveyor Nick Taaffe is living in the shop, having brought a former barbershop in the heart of Dún Laoghaire back to life, through a combination of knowledge, grit and sheer determination.
Where once stood a row of barber chairs, and a line of customers waiting for a short back and sides, now lies a bright and stylish three-bedroom home, with colourful terrazzo tiles on the floor, Crittall-style doors, an oak-crafted staircase and a carefully designed lighting scheme.
But the renovation of Champs was neither quick nor easy.
A construction professional, Taaffe is of a generation that graduated into the financial crisis and resulting recession around 2009.
“It was brutal,” he recalls. He headed to New Zealand around 2015 to work on the post-earthquake rebuild in Christchurch, but it was never a long-term move.
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